Narduzzi on Syracuse, Yankee Stadium and a lot more

Pat Narduzzi held his final press briefing of the week on Thursday and talked about facing Syracuse, playing in Yankee Stadium and a lot more. Here's video and a full rundown of his remarks.

Narduzzi: Headed to New York City. Headed to the Bronx and Yankee Stadium. I think our guys are excited to play in the game against a talented Syracuse football team, as you guys all know. They’ve got talent, they play hard, they’re well-coached by Dino Babers and we’ve had a nice week of practice. We were inside this morning and ready to go.

The ACC makes this a rivalry; I think both sides sort of question that. But you guys have played a lot of close games against them. It seems like you’ve had a lot one-score games - not all of them - but since you got here, a lot of them have been one-score games. Do you feel like it’s been close?
Narduzzi: There’s been a lot of close games. I think it’s a tough game. I think it’s physical. And I do see it as a rivalry. The longer I’m here, I really do. It’s one of the old Big East games that was played and I do see it as a rivalry that we get to embrace.

With the new ACC scheduling model coming out, the ACC made it a point that you guys will play Cuse the next seven years. Do your views of this as a rivalry kind of coincide with the ACC’s views that this is a rivalry as well? What are your thoughts on that continuing for the next several years?
Narduzzi: I think I’m good with it. I love playing a team over and over again. I think that’s part of what makes a rivalry. You get to know who they are, it’s more fun to game plan. Like, we go back to 2016 watching some of the plays they run. One of the plays they ran in that basketball game we played here, they ran last week against B.C., they ran it against Western Michigan. It’s the same stuff coming back out, like, here it is. So you’re practicing the heck out of that. There’s that chess match that you get when you play someone more than once or twice, so I kind of like that chess match.

How do you prepare for the dynamics of a baseball stadium, playing football in a baseball stadium?
Narduzzi: You know what? It really doesn’t matter. The field is the same length and all of that. Some of the things we talked about this morning was just the press box maybe being a little bit lower and far away, so just being able to make sure we have binoculars up there, just adjustments and what did it look like up there? To me, they’ve got the best view up there, but if it’s not a great view and you’re way over at third base and it’s a long way to get to the other hash just to see what’s going on - it’s going to be different. It will be a different angle as opposed to being like this when you’re at home, you’re looking at the - it’s a lot of sideways stuff. I probably should go back and watch the videotape of that game, just to see where that camera was and the angle they have up there. So those are concerns more than anything else. We know right field is a little short there. If Bub catches another fade in that end zone, he might end up in the stands there. Just jump up when you get there.

Does this matchup, being outdoors, not being on Syracuse’s campus - do you feel like this gives you guys a little bit of an advantage?
Narduzzi: I don’t think so. I think there’s no advantage there. I don’t think it matters where we play, indoors or outdoors. We’ve had our success indoors. As a matter of fact, we practiced indoors today in the dome. We practiced in the Pitt dome today, so we would have been good either way. If we were playing in the Dome, we would probably turn the heat up. They’ve got an air condition system now; like, the old days, Dino would just turn the heat up and see if he could melt us. You guys have probably been there. It was a fact. I had the conversion with Dino, too, so I wouldn’t say that out in public. He tried to melt us. I don’t think we melted too much.

You talked about your friendship with Dino. Did you just become friends when you got the job at Pitt because you’re both in the ACC? Or how did that friendship come about?
Narduzzi: Yeah, since we’ve been in the ACC, at different meetings that we’d get to, some how, some way, whether it’s at the AFCA convention, we always find a way to sit down and have lunch or dinner or something together and just talk. Him and his wife - my wife’s good friends with his wife as well. So it’s just something that we’ve spent a lot of time together, some how, some way. Maybe it’s the rivalry.

Do you talk ball or do you talk kids? What do you talk about?
Narduzzi: We talk everything. We talk everything. It always comes around ball. He’ll tell us we were holding on defense and it never gets called. We have fun.

What kind of identity does a Dino Babers team take on?
Narduzzi: I think a confidence. Dino’s a really confident guy, so regardless of what their record is, he’ll have those guys ready to go. He’s confident, he’s positive, so I know that’s what the team will come - they’ll be ready to roll, like we will be. I’ve never coached with him; I just know how he is on the side. He’ll have his guys ready and they’ll be positive.

Will you use these last couple of games to get some different guys some looks? Is that something you would like to consciously do over the last few?
Narduzzi: I’d like to take these last couple games to get some wins. I’m not worried about looks. We’ve got spring ball and all of that. I’m not worried about finding out who’s got this or who - I’m trying to win a football game, and that will always be why we step on the field on game days.

How have you seen your defense improving over the last several weeks? What kind of improvements have you seen from them?
Narduzzi: Last week, I saw improvement that was kind of like, you know, put the blinders on and go out and play four quarters. We play this game to play the game. And if you get to get out there on the field for - you know, we were watching cut-ups the other day, it was like, play number 104; I think we had 109 plays back in whatever year that was, the basketball game we played here in Acrisure Stadium, the old Heinz Field. But it doesn’t matter if you have to play 104 plays or 109 plays; go out there and play and worry about what you can control, control the controllables. They’ve shown ability all the time to make plays and do things the right way. So I just want to see them play the right way, period. Again, I think we’ve done a better job stopping the run at times. And then you don’t. I’ve seen improvements but I want to see more.

By putting the blinders on, do you mean, they didn’t worry too much about Florida State being the number four team in the country and not worried too much about what their own record is going into this game?
Narduzzi: I think that’s the blinders. I think it’s a matter of just everything. Just play defense. I think we always go out with that mindset of, it doesn’t matter who we’re playing; just put your blinders on and go. Yes. You could say that.

How ready do you think your defense is to take on the quarterback mobility that Syracuse is going to give you guys and what they try to set up on offense?
Narduzzi: Well, I think it’s pretty good. I feel good with the athletes we have on the field to stop the athletic quarterback. We’ve seen enough of them this year, whether it’s Drones or the guy we played last week, probably a Heisman Trophy candidate guy that I thought was pretty good.

Do you feel like your younger linebackers and the freshmen are adapting to that quickly enough for ACC ball?
Narduzzi: We’ll find out. We just continue to get better, but we’re happy with where some of the young guys are. And it’s consistency and it’s, how many plays can you give them and then get them out. I think Bangally plays better when he’s a little bit fresher, so we have to make sure we don’t give some guys too many reps. He was banged up a few weeks ago and still hampered, so we need to give him blows at times, just so he can rest.

Their offense lost Gadsden about a month ago. How have they adjusted to not having him on the field?
Narduzzi: I don’t see a whole lot. Maybe they run it a little bit more, but I think it depends on who the quarterback is, too. They ran it a little bit more last week against B.C.; I don’t know if it was what they wanted to do against B.C. or if it was because Gadsden - for us it didn’t change a whole bunch. I don’t know if he had a catch last year against us. I don’t think he did. If he did, he had one. But he’s a great player, but they have other good players that are capable, so I think they feel good with their skill that they’ve recruited there.

Do you prepare for two quarterbacks this week?
Narduzzi: Yeah, of course.

How are they different?
Narduzzi: Well, one’s taller. They both are athletic. Shrader can run and he’s a little bit taller, probably a more seasoned passer. He’s got 34 career starts to Del Rio Wilson’s got just two - one against us and one last week. So I’d say experience is the main thing. 34-2.

It makes your week tougher, though.
Narduzzi: It does. It does. It makes it - when you don’t know what a guy looks like, it always makes it harder. You don’t know what they do, what you need to stop. But we have at least video on both of them. It’s not like going to Wake Forest and never seeing a guy before.

It’s not all that uncommon for a head coach to make coaching changes midseason. You haven’t done that over the past nine years, but with the way things are now, things happen so fast at the end of the season - transfer portal, you have to move quickly - do you see that shifting in the sport and is that you find yourself considering because things move so quickly at the end of the year?
Narduzzi: You know, number one, I’m worried about Syracuse and not worried about the chaos on the outside that happens. Just focused on our kids and what we do in this program and nothing else. There’s nothing that’s going to speed up what we do and how we do what we do here at Pitt.

How has Solomon gotten better and grown from the time you first met him until now?
Narduzzi: Leaps and bounds. Solomon DeShields has really gotten better. He’s a guy that, you know, a couple of years ago - I talked on my radio show the other day with Larry, just about where he was. There were times, maybe over the first year and a half, you know, ‘Coach, can I go play receiver? I think I’m a receiver. I’m not a linebacker.’ And then there was finally a time he said, ‘Coach, I’m done with receiver. I’m going to be a linebacker.’ When he finally put it in his mind that, ‘I’m going to be a linebacker,’ is when you started to see him start to rise. He’s had a good year and he’s going to be even better next year.

Is it just lightbulb after lightbulb with him? Just week after week, do you see him taking steps forward?
Narduzzi: Yeah, and it’s not just him. I mean, there’s a lot of guys that are making steps that maybe you don’t see. But he’s been here long enough that you can see a little bit. But there’s a lot of guys that, the lightbulb goes on, whether it’s Jules or sometimes it takes a little longer than you want or you have patience for. But there’s a lot of guys that are getting better week by week that you see. That’s what experience does for you.

Playing at Yankee Stadium must be interesting for your players. Do you see them treating it as a special moment or just another game?
Narduzzi: We haven’t really talked much about it, except this morning I threw up the stadium and the sidelines, just to give them a picture of where they’re going. I haven’t really talked about the history of it. They’ll come out with their pregame warmups, you know, some pinstripes. They have the Yankee stripes on their warmup gear. I think they got excited about that. But it’s a special place. It’s different. It’s not a home game or an away game. It’s a neutral site, and I think there’s something to be had for that. Like I said, I think the most impressive thing about where we’re going is not a stadium or the field, the end zone that you can run into the wall; it’s the people that are there and the relations we’ve built through the years with the Pinstripe Bowl and everybody that works for them.

Having a game in New York City and having alumni that in New York City that will have an opportunity to be in close proximity and get to see a Pitt game, how exciting is that to know that there might be a whole new crop of fans that haven’t seen you guys play in awhile?
Narduzzi: Yeah, I think that’s - there’s no question about it. We’ve got a lot of population up there of Pitt grads, and it certainly does give an opportunity for some people that maybe can’t travel all the way to Pittsburgh to see a ball game. No doubt about it. I think that’s why we had such a good showing the last time we were there.

The warmups you talked about with the pinstripes, are they white or blue?
Narduzzi: They’re white. Look like the Yankees, right?